I know I lose a lot of "cool kids points" for saying this, but I am seriously excited about both this, and the idea of a "space force". IT seems like we're spending real money on giant engineering projects! Love it!
Things shouldn't be pursued based on whether they seem big and sciencey. They should be pursued if the benefits exceed the costs and risks. A space force does not meet that criteria.
We already have a "space force" - the Air Force - which was spun out of the Army. It's not odd to spin out the Space Force from the Air Force, if necessary.
> And why we need any kind of weapons in space?
Because other nations want to or are in the process of weaponizing space.
The first time someone knocks out one of our GPS satellites, you'll be asking, "why don't we have a Space Force to protect against this sort of thing?"
Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea." [0]
It is extremely unlikely that someone will start knocking down US satellites, that would be an equivalent of attacking US, that never happened after invention of nuclear weapons. To spend billions to prepare for extremely unlikely event does not seem to be very rational thing to do. Meanwhile there are serious problems facing country and humanity in general global worming, automation takes away millions of jobs, opioid crisis, millions of people without health insurance, school system that has major issues.
>> Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea."
Yes, Neil gets exited when space gets any attention.
Both nation-state and non-nation-state organized groups have attacked the US since the invention of nuclear weapons. (On US territory itself—notably on 9/11/2001—but more often US military assets off US territory, which is the closest equivalent to attacking a GPS satellite.)
We can't just start blowing up satellites in stable orbits.
>To spend billions to prepare for extremely unlikely event does not seem to be very rational thing to do.
Nuclear weapons were not free to develop.
I just don't see what to invest in for a Space Force. Anyone looking to attack something like GPS would either use something like ground base lasers, software/network hacks, or traditional projectiles. Anything developed by the US would either be obsolete by the time its needed or get sold to adversaries and used right back at us.
Outside of defense I know a large military and weapons help in having influence, but so does having a stable and large economy--the later moreso.
Nuclear weapons were developed out of a competition for survival. The people involved knew even in the hands of the Allied forces it was extremely dangerous. You're arguing we should invest in a Space Force because someone else might do it in the future.
No, I won't. While the role is important, there is no sensible reason for a separate service, and the mission already exists in the Air Force.
Sure, we need the mission, just like we need the riverine warfare mission, or the littoral warfare mission. We don't need a separate service for any of those missions, though.
> Everyone's favorite rational pop scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, thinks it's "not a weird idea."
It's not a weird idea, and it's something we’ll quite likely eventually need. OTOH, quite probably not this century.
That's extremely optimistic.
We might not need it during this administration, but surely we'll need it in less than fifty years.
"what makes you excited about new military spending?"
I am guessing he is excited about the fact that they are focusing on space research.
The original Russian "rockets" were just ICBM stages. There are hundreds of examples of military research boosting tech, especially when it comes to medicine and spaceflight.
>> There are hundreds of examples of military research boosting tech
Increasing military spending to boost tech or space research is like killing mosquito with the bazooka. DoD is extremely ineffective organization, there are estimates that it wastes $125 Billion annually from its budget. [1]
If government wants to increase spending on research and tech they need to invest in education first. School system in US has very low rankings compared to other developed countries.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-defense-waste/pentago...
20% innefficiency for a very large government org (which for decades has been successfully dodging audit)? I'd say that would be a pinnacle of efficiency :)
Now “effectively is not the same as “efficient.” DoD and pretty much every single other large government agency could be considered very inefficient. But ineffective? Not at all.
9/11
The peak of the most recent foreign military offensive against the US was in 2016; the operation was quite successful in achieving the war aims, is the single most successful military operation ever conducted against the US, and is now in the exploitation phase.
I'm just pointing out that other countries are not afraid of weaponizing space- we are simply behind and at a disadvantage if we don't. Especially since satellites play an important role in military and civilian infrastructure.
How, exactly, are we at a disadvantage? We can rain destruction on any point on the Earth's surface, and have proven technology for shooting down satellites (and inevitably bringing down our own because suddenly there are billions of new objects in orbit from destroying 1 satellite.)
Where are the gaps? Do you anticipate an alien invasion? If so, we'd be fucked. Do you think the <insert current trendy US enemy here> has some secret space technology to turn the entire US into a parking lot instantly, and somehow we have to put $35bn BB guns on satellites to combat it?
No, they just took a normal weapon and mounted it.
> dangerous. And they can be easily destroyed
Literally all mounted weapons can be described like this.
> Currently there are no serious weapons that can be useful in space.
Absolutely incorrect. The US has deployed laser-based weapons since the early 2000s. Used for missile defense mostly. As you can imagine, they perform well in the vacuum of space.
Can you provide an example of a laser weapon(s) that can actually shoot down ballistic missile or cruise missile in real life scenario? The best that current laser weapons can do is to shoot down drones from relatively close distance. [1]
Another issue with laser weapons in the space is powering them and maintaining them.
[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/military/no-qu...
Evil and conflict are as old as humans themselves. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand human nature.
What stopped Soviet tanks from rolling into West Berlin? It wasn’t a brigade of huggable teddy bears.
The same thing that stops them now, nuclear weapons, huge military and NATO. No one is suggesting to not have defense or to stop spending money on defense. US already spends more on defense than next 10 countries in the list combined, most of which are US allies [1]. There is no need to spend more.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
The idea seems cool, I agree. But the implementation will be anything but cool. Going into space is still very expensive and hard. Be prepared for an even larger DoD budget and very expensive projects (F35 anyone?) at a scale not yet seen.